Photo by Leah Ingram Eagle
Shelby County CFO Cheryl Naugher said she once again took a conservative approach when working on revenue projections for the county for the next fiscal year.
Naugher said she used three-year and five-year averages for the proposed revenue projections for fiscal 2023, which begins Oct. 1 of this year. She projects the county will take in $80.6 million, a 7% decrease from the $86.9 million in revenues projected to be collected in fiscal 2022.
Naugher predicts real property taxes will come in at $18.9 million for 2023, a 10% increase from the $17.2 million in real property taxes expected to be collected in 2022.
“We actually have collected more than we budgeted for last year,” Naugher said.
For the mortgage and deed tax, Naugher took a five-year average but said she expects with the higher interest rates for that to go possibly down from what is collected in 2022. She projects those tax revenues will drop from $2.3 million in 2022 to $1.7 million in 2023.
Rental tax revenues are projected to decrease from $3.4 million to $2.7 million, while building permit revenues are expected to decrease from $1.5 million to $1.1 million.
“We think with interest rates that will kind of slow down some of the building permits,” Naugher said.
Naugher projects revenue from the Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) will increase significantly, from $1.25 million in 2022 to $3.8 million in 2023. This tax is generated from online shopping purchases. She said half of that is additional sales tax that is an expense the commission pays out to the school boards.
“We are the only county that voluntarily pays one half of the SSUT tax to the school boards of education,” County Manager Chad Scroggins said.
The Shelby County Jail is projected to bring in $884,085 in revenue for fiscal 2022, which is more than the $744,000 that was budgeted. For 2023, Naugher is projecting $775,185 in revenue from the jail because it’s unknown how much non-county inmates and federal inmates will be utilizing the facility.
Revenues for the county general fund are projected to be $74.6 million, a $5.6 million drop from the $80 million now projected for 2022. County Manager Chad Scroggins said that is a very conservative number.
“We’ve got 10% for cost of living,” Scroggins said. “That's our current retail inflationary number. And obviously fuel prices, we believe that fuel prices will affect consumer spending.”
Other items of note from revenue projections include:
- A projected increase for the Shelby County Airport from $1.3 million to over $1.5 million, as airport revenues are based on fuel cost.
- A projected $60,000 is expected from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs grant for the county’s mobile health unit.
- County lodging tax revenues are projected at $2.3 million, which is about $417,000 less than 2022 projections.
- Roads and bridge funds are projected at $10.2 million.
- The total highway department proposed projected budget for fiscal 2023 is $19.9 million.
- The county government capital improvement fund is projected to be $823,200.
- Landfill revenues are projected to increase 3% to $6 million, and water revenues are expected to increase 12% increase to $13 million.
- Grants are projected at $706,000
Now all of the county departments will send in their projected expenses, and Naugher will balance back to the actual projected revenues, Scroggins said.
“We’ve gotten the revenues early and hope to have the expenditures early, and our goal is to try to approve the budget in September before it goes into effect Oct. 1," he said.
